Biography

I’ve been involved in genealogical research nearly 60 years. In the early days of my research, mostly the only others interested were little old ladies doing research to get into the DAR. But the Bicentennial, the Roots mini-series and personal computers changed all that.

I started out researching my various family lines and was fortunate that relatives born in the 1860’s and 1870’s were still living to provide information not available elsewhere. Eventually, I concentrated on only my two Goff lines and for over 50 years was the unofficial historian of the WV Goff family. Later, I specialized in reconstructing the records of Preston County, WV as the courthouse and records burned in 1869, destroying 50 years of history.
In 1968 I self-published “The Wade Family”, in 1973 “The Springston Family” and in 1974 “The Goff Family.” In 1998 I published “Preston County WV (then VA) Records 1853-1860” In 2003 Phillip Goff and I co-wrote “The Four Goff Brothers of Western Virginia.” This book won a national award in 2005 for excellence in genealogy.

During the course of my research, I purchased an expensive SLR camera and taught myself how to copy old family pictures. I visited hundreds of relatives and photographed several thousand old family pictures, some of which no longer exist. I’m in the process of posting the best of these on WikiTree profiles. I’ve always been generous in sharing my information and pictures with others and can find many of the pictures I photographed that are now on Ancesry.com family trees and Find A Grave memorials. WikiTree has the right approach to posting pictures by requiring that the source be given.

In spite of serious, life-threatening health issues, I was able to complete my goal of creating WikiTree profiles through the great grandchildren of the four Goff brothers, their spouses (if married) and the spouses’ parents (if known). This is my legacy. I chose not to use the recommended format of showing locations; such as, Salem, Meigs, Ohio, USA as this would leave the reader wondering if Salem was a city, a town, a township, a district or a precinct and would require further research on the reader's part to make the determination. To not show complete locations is, in my opinion, sloppy genealogy. In retrospect, I should have shown locations historically rather than using standard postal abbreviations for States. However, it has always been my preference to show dates historically; that is, how they actually appear in documents and official records; such as, August 23, 1845, rather than modernizing them by converting to a military-style format; such as, 23 Aug 1845. I chose to use brevity in providing citations as I didn’t want to deprive researchers the satisfaction of finding information on their own; however, contributors need to be aware when altering established profiles that not everything found on the Internet is correct and needs to be further verified before accepting as fact.

DNA Tested
Roy Lockhart's DNA has been tested for genealogical purposes. It may be possible to confirm family relationships by comparing test results with Roy or other carriers of his ancestors' Y-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA.
Y-chromosome DNA test-takers in his direct paternal line on WikiTree:

Thank you so very much for adding me to the Trusted List for Polly Starcher Blosser! I really do appreciate it and look forward to seeing if we are cousins or not since my ancestors come from the same part of the world as some of yours! Wow, we are 20th cousins (uncertain) but I think it is probable!

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I see the Gaitskill-28 is apparently picked up from my Gedcom upload of my Ancestry tree but I haven't actually gotten my tree here filled in that far out. I put a note on the other one suggesting it was unlikely Henry had his first child at age 25 days (the date his son Silas was born on her tree and mine, which is pretty well documented) and telling her what I knew but haven't received a response and she hasn't changed the date. IF she's as sporadic as I am about her tree it might be a while :-)

Hi Roy, At this point I only have a guestimate about Henry Gaitskill, based on the widow applying for a revolutionary war pension and her statement they were married in 1783 (county registry says 1784). If he was in the war I have to assume he was at least 15 or 16 (likely a bit older) somewhere between 1776 and 1783. And looking at the average age of marriage for men at the time, also guessing he was at least 20 if not more like 25 when he got married. I'm thinking 1761 or 2 would be the latest. I do have evidence his sister was born in 1760 so a guess from 1755-1764. On my Ancestry tree I put it at ca 1758. I'm still hunting for his birth info, more info on mother and any info on dad...

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